The field of the present disclosure relates generally to manufacturing assemblies using temporary fasteners and, more specifically, to an apparatus and methods of automated insertion and/or removal of cleco fasteners from assemblies.
At least some known aircraft assemblies are manufactured using panelized construction to form a plurality of barrel sections that include substructure components such as longerons, stringers, bulkheads, and frames. The longerons, stringers, bulkheads, and frames reinforce the skin of the aircraft and maintain a cross-sectional shape of a fuselage and/or wing structure. Specifically, fasteners are used to couple the substructure components to the skin of the aircraft, to couple the substructure components together, and/or to couple adjacent barrel sections together. Coupling aircraft components together using fasteners generally requires accurately cutting holes for the fasteners in the adjacent aircraft components.
In at least some known manufacturing processes, temporary fasteners, such as cleco fasteners, are inserted into the fastener holes to facilitate maintaining alignment of the adjacent aircraft components to be coupled together. The temporary fasteners are inserted into the fastener holes after they are drilled, and the temporary fasteners are easily removed when more permanent fasteners are ready to be inserted into the fastener holes. Accurately cutting fastener holes, and selectively installing temporary fasteners therein may be a time consuming and laborious task. As such processes increasingly become automated, it may be desirable to facilitate efficient insertion and/or removal of the temporary fasteners in known assemblies to reduce manufacturing time of the assemblies.